House, (near 7 East Street), Newtownards, Co Down, BT23 3E?

Derelict remains of a small two-storey gabled house, situated off the south side of East Street near number 7 in Newtownards, built in rubble with brick dressings to the openings of the north facade. The north facade retains at least one window opening to both ground and first floor levels, with the remains of a sash frame featuring Georgian panes on the ground floor. To the left of this window stands an unusual rubble pier with brick quoins. The right-hand side of this facade has collapsed. The south facade appears now to be joined to the rear return of a building on Frances Street. The roof retains much of its Bangor blue slates, and a tall rendered chimney stack stands against the east gable. The other facades could not be observed.

Local residents claim this building is Jacobean (seventeenth century) and was one of many structures that once fronted a former laneway in the area, but the available evidence suggests this is unlikely. The regularity of the construction, the machined appearance of the roof and ceiling timbers, and the character of the remaining window frames all suggest a later date. A building appears on this site on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map, with remnants of a laneway outline shown just to the north, but Colville's estate map of 1720 shows no evidence of either a laneway or buildings at this location. This implies the structure is mid-eighteenth century at the earliest. However, its siting between East Street and Frances Street suggests it may originally have served as an outbuilding serving one of the large terrace dwellings on Frances Street, and given that Frances Street was laid out in 1817, the building is unlikely to predate that period.